Mexican Citizen Executed After Court Declines to Intervene

Texas executed a Mexican national whose prosecution violated U.S. treaty obligations soon after the Supreme Court refused to intervene Thursday.

U.S. high court clears the way for Mexican man, convicted of rape, to be executed in Texas. Video Courtesy of Reuters.

Humberto Leal Garcia, 38 years old, was convicted of the 1994 rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl. He had asked the court to stay his execution while Congress considered legislation that could have granted him a chance to raise the treaty issue before a federal judge. The Obama administration backed Mr. Leal's request, citing "serious repercussions for United States foreign relations" should the execution proceed.

The court said no by a 5-4 vote, dividing along its conservative-liberal line. Texas Gov. Rick Perry had earlier declined a clemency petition.

The Mexican government said in a statement Thursday night that it "strongly" condemned the execution.

Mr. Leal contended that Texas authorities violated the 1963 Vienna Convention after his arrest when they failed to advise him of his right to assistance from his home country's consulate or embassy.

Texas and other states routinely have failed to advise foreigners as required under the treaty. In 2004, the International Court of Justice, which the U.S. had agreed could review disputes under the treaty, said condemned inmates should have an additional hearing to consider whether the denial of consular rights had prejudiced their trials.

Former President George W. Bush reacted by withdrawing the world court's jurisdiction over future Vienna Convention disputes involving the U.S. But the administration said states should obey the 2004 rulings.

Some states took steps to comply, including Oklahoma, whose governor commuted a death sentence to life imprisonment. Texas, however, defied its former governor, asserting that President Bush had no authority to compel the state to grant the hearings.

In 2008, the Supreme Court agreed the U.S. had an international-law obligation to obey the world court, which sits in The Hague and is the principal judicial arm of the United Nations. But it held that federal courts were powerless to make Texas comply unless Congress passed additional legislation to enforce the world court judgment.

Last month, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.) introduced a bill giving federal courts jurisdiction to hear Vienna Convention claims, and the Obama administration said the execution should be put off while the measure was pending.

The Supreme Court majority, in an unsigned opinion, said that wasn't good enough.

"We are doubtful that it is ever appropriate to stay a lower court judgment in light of unenacted legislation. Our task is to rule on what the law is, not what it might eventually be," the court said.

The court was unmoved by government warnings of diplomatic consequences, including adverse treatment of Americans arrested overseas.

The issue has been around for years, the court said, and "Congress evidently did not find these consequences sufficiently grave to prompt its enactment of implementing legislation."

In dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer wrote that Mr. Leal's petition should be put on hold until the court reconvenes in the fall, giving Congress a chance to consider the implementing legislation.

The majority "ignores the appeal of the President in a matter related to foreign affairs, it substitutes its own views about the likelihood of congressional action for the views of Executive Branch officials who have consulted with Members of Congress, and it denies the request by four Members of the Court to delay the execution until the Court can discuss the matter at Conference in September," Justice Breyer wrote. He was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

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